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No. 25 Cal Breaks Bruins, 67-61

LOS ANGELES - Just when it appeared California would succumb to UCLA'srally, the Golden Bears stopped the Bruins cold.

Ryan Forehan-Kelly tied his career high with 20 points and Amit Tamir'sinside basket snapped a tie with 1:39 remaining, lifting the 25th-ranked Bearsover UCLA 67-61 on Thursday night in the first round of the Pacific-10Conference tournament.

The sixth-seeded Bruins (19-11) are left to await a possible NCAA tournamentbid, where they'll have a chance to win 20 games for the 14th consecutiveseason.

'There's no doubt in my mind about this team,' Kapono said. 'We can'tsulk. We just have to be ready when they call our name Sunday.'

Joe Shipp added 18 points for the Bears, who got six of their nine3-pointers from Forehan-Kelly.

Cal bounced back from a stunning 99-53 loss at Arizona last Saturday.

'A lot of teams would've been doubting themselves,' Braun said. 'Wemanaged to put a very tough loss behind us. We had to work awfully hard.'

Barnes led UCLA with 15 points, and Kapono and Walcott each added 10.

The Bruins committed 19 turnovers, including six by freshman Cedric Bozemanand five by Walcott - not surprising because they averaged 18.5 miscues insplitting two games with Cal this season.

'We were pretty careless starting out,' Kapono said. 'We wanted to have agood showing. Maybe we were a little tense and maybe those turnovers werecaused by that.'

The Bears were especially effective in shutting down UCLA center DanGadzuric, who finished with six points and nine rebounds in 35 minutes. He wascoming off a 22-point effort in a loss to Oregon last Saturday.

'They made a conscious effort to swarm him and cut down his catches andtouches,' UCLA coach Steve Lavin said.

Trailing 58-48, the Bruins scored eight straight points to get to 58-57 with2:31 remaining. Walcott had six points, including a 3-pointer.

After Brian Wethers hit one of two free throws to put Cal ahead 59-57,Walcott tied it with 2:06 left.

After Tamir's go-ahead basket, Shipp stole the ball from Walcott. Wethers,A.J. Diggs and Shantay Legans combined to hit six free throws in the closing 47seconds.

'The kids did a great job of fighting from 10 down to tie the game,' Lavinsaid. 'In the first half, our 11 turnovers were something that put us in ahole.'

UCLA won the first conference tournament in 1987. The Bears were 2-4 in thefirst four years of the tournament before it was dropped in 1991.

Despite playing in front of a rowdy partisan crowd at Staples Center, theBruins couldn't sustain a rally long enough to stay in front.

A basket by Kapono provided UCLA's only lead, 35-34, early in the secondhalf. Cal ran off straight, including consecutive 3-pointers by Forehan-Kelly,for a 43-35 lead.

Gadzuric dunked for his first points of the game, launching a 9-2 spurt thatdrew UCLA within one with 11:35 remaining.

But Forehan-Kelly stopped the Bruins with his sixth 3-pointer for a 48-44lead.

The Bruins rallied twice from nine points down in the first half to trail34-31 at the break. Barnes hit three 3-pointers and could've gotten UCLAcloser, but was 1-of-4 from the line over the final 1:12.

UCLA wound up sixth in the regular-season standings, their worst ever finishin the conference. Their 65-62 loss to Oregon last Saturday kept them fromgrabbing a share of second.